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Monitor http://www.freemumia.com/ and http://abu-jamal-news.com/ for news, analysis and emergency response plans

The Supreme Court has tossed out a lower court ruling that nullified the death sentence for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. The appeals court now has the option of re-imposing the death sentence or ordering a new federal trial to hear other claims of injustice raised by Abu-Jamal.

On Tuesday May 12, the remaining LOVE Park 4 defendants - Jason Robbins, Tom Keenan and Jared Schultz - appeared in court yet again. This hearing thankfully moved in a forward direction, instead of resulting in another continuance in a long line of delays dating back almost two years.

At the 24th anniversary of the May 13 massacre, MOVE organizes for 2009 Parole Hearings

By Hans Bennett

(Born Black Magazine, May 2009)

“Attention, MOVE: This Is America! You must abide by the laws of the United States!” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sambor declared through a loudspeaker, minutes before the May 13, 1985 police assault on the revolutionary MOVE organization’s home. This assault killed 5 children and 6 adults, including MOVE founder John Africa. That morning police shot over 10,000 rounds of bullets into their West Philadelphia home, and detonated explosives on the front, and both sides of their house. Following an afternoon standstill, a State Police helicopter dropped a C-4 bomb, illegally supplied by the FBI, on MOVE’s roof. The bomb started a fire that eventually destroyed 60 homes: the entire block of a middle-class black neighborhood. 13-year old Birdie Africa and 30-year old Ramona Africa were the only survivors, after they dodged police gunfire and escaped from the fire with permanent burn scars. (watch video)

The Love Park 4 case is still slowly winding its way through the court
system after almost 2 years. Since the defendants' successful court
date in December (see http://tinyurl.com/cyb9ux), the State has
decided to appeal the judge's order to reveal the identity of the
undercover narcotics officers posing as neo-Nazis in Love Park on July
23, 2007.

On Tuesday May 12th, Judge Frank Palumbo will hear the State's appeal.
It has taken four court appearances since December to get to this

By Hans Bennett

“My soul cries from all that I witnessed and endured. It does more than cry, it mourns continuously,” said Black Panther Robert Hillary King, following his release from the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 2001, after serving his last 29 years in continuous solitary confinement. King argues that slavery persists in Angola and other US prisons, citing the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, which legalizes slavery in prisons as “a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." King says: “You can be legally incarcerated but morally innocent.”

Since his release, King has fought tirelessly for the freedom of his imprisoned comrades Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who are the two co-founders of the Angola chapter of the Black Panther Party (BPP)—the only official prison chapter of the BPP. They have now spent over 36 years in solitary confinement. Together, they are known as the Angola Three, a trio of BPP political prisoners whose supporters include Amnesty International, Desmond Tutu, Congressman John Conyers, and the ACLU. Kgalema Mothlante, the President of South Africa says their case “has the potential of laying bare, exposing the shortcomings, in the entire US system.” King, Woodfox, and Wallace’s federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that their time in solitary confinement is “cruel and unusual punishment,” will go to trial any month in Baton Rouge, at the U.S. Middle District Court.

Chemical and electro-shock weapons used
Racist violence and repression on the rise again
Take action Today Tomorrow and Next Week.

Forward further and wider than ever because enough is enough!
 
On January 20, 2009 guards in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at the State Correctional [sic] Institution (SCI) in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania assaulted six prisoners, reportedly citing as reasons that these men file grievances against guard misconduct and are engaged in civil litigation against DOC officials; contact outside organizations (HRC/Fed Up! and www.prisoners.com in particular) to expose conditions of torture; also to send a message-in their words: "fuck a historical day, y'all always going to be niggers."

By Hans Bennett

(Abu-Jamal-News.com)

On Friday, December 19, 2008, death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed his appeal to the US Supreme Court, asking it to consider his case for a new guilt-phase trial. One month before, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed its separate appeal to the US Supreme Court asking to have Abu-Jamal executed without a new sentencing-phase trial.